To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, whether the £2 per ton levied by the Coal Board for restoration on every ton of coal sold prior to the privatisation of the coal industry was paid to his Department; and if he will make a statement.

Prior to its sale to private sector purchasers in 1994, the British Coal Corporation was empowered (pursuant to the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946) to license the activities of small-scale, private mining operators and to levy a rent on those operators’ production. Such rents, which varied over time, were a payment for the resource rather than a reserve for subsequent restoration, and it is my understanding that the income they represented was offset against the Corporation’s operating expenditure.